Difference between High Availability and Disaster Recovery

Question: What is the difference between High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR)? I often hear these terms being used interchangeably ,and would like to hear some specific definitions . Answer: High Availability and Disaster Recovery are often interchanged but there is a difference - and once we define the attributes of both High Availability and Disaster Recovery , you can then use them accordingly. HA is a system feature , with an objective to achieve an agreed operational uptime for a higher than normal period DR refers to procedures and policies to facilitate recovery of critical systems and infrastructure... Read more →

How to check SQL Server AlwaysOn High Availability is enabled

Question: How can I check programmatically if SQL Server AlwaysOn High Availability is enabled? Answer: If you can logon to the SQL Server with the correct privileges , using the SERVERPROPERTY function . SELECT SERVERPROPERTY ('IsHadrEnabled'); Read More Database Mirroring Redundancy for SQL Server Read more →

SMB 3.0 and SQL Server reading list

I've been exploring the SQL Server and SMB 3.0 possibilities. There is a large amount of information available on the subject. I've found these articles very useful. I'm interested in : Storage Option Database migration Failover Performance Server Message Block SMB File Share and SQL Server - An option to consider ... SQL Failover Cluster without Shared Storage – SQL Server 2012 and SMB Install SQL Server with SMB fileshare as a storage option Hardware and Software Requirements for Installing SQL Server 2012 : Storage Types for Data Files SMB 3.0. Best Feature of Windows Server 2012 How to Increase... Read more →

Researching FlashCopy Manager for backup and restore management

Data sets are growing. Requirements for increased Production data availability are expanding in the 24 x 7 world. But amongst all this change – there still remains the critical demand for the DBA to support the agreed Recovery Point Objective (RPO). I’m always looking for ways to offload the backup workload . During the backup window, server performance degrades. I’ve recently been researching Flash Copy Manager. These are some scenarios \ thoughts \ issues requiring investigation. When investigating new Backup and Restore products and how they may apply to an environment, simple or obvious questions can sometimes elicit responses revealing... Read more →

Nic Teaming

Network card teaming or NIC teaming are networking terms describing methods of combining multiple parallel network connections . The main purposes are 1) increasing throughput beyond a single connection and 2) redundancy. The three main teaming configurations Network Fault Tolerance (NFT) 1) Two – Eight Physical NICS are teamed together into one virtual network adapter. 2) Only one port (Primary) is used for transmit and receive. The remainder adapters are deemed secondary Ports. They are used in the event of a Primary Port failure. 3) Heartbeats can be received and transmitted by all ports Transmit Load Balancing with Fault Tolerance... Read more →